You meet someone. You date. You fall in love. You marry.
The four simple rules of love….
Wrong! I’m getting married but I’d never met him before now, never dated him, never fell in love. I have no access to the memories of the most magical time of anyone’s life.
My mind won’t allow me to evoke the past, I can’t remember those simple stages to lead me to the fourth .

I can’t comprehend why I would have ever wanted to marry someone like Dante. I should never have passed the first stage, although, I may have seen him through the eyes of the woman I once was, this me that lives, breathes here now, can’t understand how we made it to the next stage.
I’m not sure, without memories, how I know that this voice inside me, telling me I would never have chosen him, speaks some truth, I just know. He’s controlling, arrogant, callous and violent, and utterly hell bent on humiliating and degrading me – Like watching me falter, watching me struggle to comply and be the woman he asked to marry, powers him- as though he wants to break me piece by piece. Fiber by fiber. Until all that’s here is the shell he created from a soul that I once owned.

Now my memories are slowly returning. And they show me a completely different side to meeting him. Our dates, falling in love. The Dante haunting me in the shadows of my mind is loving, gentle and utterly enamored with me, nothing like the man with me now.
And this is what taunts me. My tender lover turned into a debauched, cruel sadist who is determined to consume my life, destroy my mind and murder my spirit.

I am, Star, and just like with some stars in the sky, the light you see is an echo, a façade, I am already gone
I am a no one.
Especially to him. To him I am the dark in his desires, the corrupt in his depravity.
The sin in his immorality

I have always had a passion for storytelling, whether it be through lyrics or bed time stories with my sisters. I wanted to be an actress growing up so I could live many roles but I learned early on that my mind was too active, I would want to change the script haha! I would watch films and think of ways they could of improved the story if they took another direction.

My mum would always have a book in her hand when I was young and passed on her love for reading, inspiring me to venture into writing my own. I tend to have a darker edge to my writing. Not all love stories are made from light, some are created in darkness but are just as powerful and worth telling too

When I’m not lost in the world of characters I love spending time with my family. I’m a mum and that comes first in my life but when I do get down time I love attending music concerts with my younger sister, who shares my soul, we are two peas in a pod.

Author of The Heart of Stone, Room 103 and Shadows of Sin series, and the new Blue Butterfly series.

D H Sidebottom is a fulltime mum/author. She lives in Derbyshire, England with her children and two dogs.
She is an avid reader and her tastes range from horror to erotic, but she loves to help new authors get into the ‘scene’. She loves rock music and tattooed guys, and has a weakness for coffee, wine and Belgium buns